On monsters I – Excerpts from Studies of corruption

...monsters are beings who have been touched by the evil force of mana, twisting them into a mockery of what they once were...

...dwarves are one such example of light mutations that a human can suffer. Though such creatures are said to be a proper race, and not monsters by some, one must not forget their origin...

Early spring / Mercy 782 ADM – Eternal Empire – Modona’s upper district – Merentah mansion

Dinner was strange, most of his family was pestering him with questions, how he was doing, did it hurt, did anything weird happen at church, was it still broken, did he want to arm wrestle them.

Well, Agrios’ question made him laugh a bit.

He wondered where his cousin’s friend went tough, she wasn’t here for dinner.

No matter how well-intentioned his family was, he really didn’t like all the attention, he was tired from the day’s event and pretty much just wanted to get back to his bedroom.

He couldn’t see his sister anywhere in the refectory, she had likely been grounded, justly so, but still if she was here, he could have at least teased her for breaking his arm.

He didn’t really know if teasing was appropriate given the situation. Personally, he was over it, no harm was done in the end, all was mended up. But maybe he’d guilt trip her, that would be fun.

As he listened to the grown-ups talk, filtering uninteresting chatter, he heard uncle Damien and dad talking about the birthmonth at the end of this week, it was always a huge event, accommodating all early spring births in their family and its branches.

But more interesting, they were thinking of giving him a bigger present to help him forget his broken arm. He’d have to fake that phantom-pain thing his mom was talking about.

Nothing else was catching his interest so he laboriously swallowed the rest of his food down, Odelle had gotten him an extra-extra-large portion, and wouldn’t let him leave the table until he ate everything.

Finished, and bursting full, he got down from his chair and to his mom, tugging at her dress.

“Ma, I'm finished, can I go?”

“Of course, sweety, here,” She got up, taking his hand in hers, “let me get you tucked in.”

She turned to Victoria, Agrios’ sister who she’d been chatting with.

“I’ll be back right after, hold that thought and don’t worry, the Kleites will wipe the Kabeys from the equation.”

They left the hall hand in hand, a few calls of goodnight coming from the table.

“Say mama, what was that about the Kleites?”

“Nothing that should worry you, just grown-up things.”

“I’m tall.”

Clearly, he had the superior argument, he even faked the phantom-thing in his arm to make her ply, or maybe she knew he wouldn’t drop it.

“Let's just say my side of the family is helping the Merentah with a few disagreements they have over a new family of mmh... foreign merchants that recently bought their way to the patrician council.”

“Ho! The kind of help your brother provides?”

“And where did you hear about that young-man? Those aren't children's stories.”

“Not a child, and uncle Robert is some sort of knight, like the Olians, right?” He lied freely, though not credibly.

“You are too curious for you own good... Listen, things like what we, the Kleite, do are big family secrets. Never talk about them outside this house, or to strangers... And don’t get involved in it, ever.”

“I’m not dumb, I didn’t tell you so there is no way I'll tell someone else.”

“Good, now let’s get you sleeping.”

They had reached the door to his room so she pushed it gently open, he could see the still form of his sleeping sister, and an half-finished plate of food.

He climbed on top of his bed, his mom helped him remove his clothes, then, threw them in the bin while he put on pajamas and slithered under his covers.

“Sleep tight baby, and don’t try to read under your cover, I can see those shadows under you eyes.”

“Ok mom.”

She landed a kiss on his forehead, then, tucked him tight in his covers.

“I’ll be downstairs if you need me.” She said before slowly closing the door.

Ulysse was a bit miffed, a critique of his calculated sleep schedule, not even a little story, or a lullaby, and on top of that she’d called him baby.

Maybe that thing with the Kleites and Kabeys was a bigger deal than she let on.

He was very bad at falling asleep, as soon as he tried to rest his brain got going, it spun and spun in useless thoughts to which he didn’t have the answers.

This night, one thought in particular stuck to him, could he channel now that he had been healed by the miracle?

A few minutes later he made a choice, he had to try it out, now.

“Hey Ugly, you awake?”

“Yes, I'm awake baby.” She replied instantly.

“I hate you.”

It was a shame he couldn’t scream it since he was supposed to be asleep.

“Hey I'm sorry for your arm, I didn’t think it would be that bad. I... I thought you didn’t want to speak to me. Is it okay?”

“It still hurts a lot. Mom said it was phantom-pains.” He lied.

“You’re possessed?”

“No dummy, it’s just the name.”

Silence rang for a few seconds.

“Hey sis, did you know the Kleite were going to fight some new guys?”

So much for not talking about it.

There was a ruffle of sheet as Alice got up in excitement.

“Wow, really, will uncle Ro’ go too? I bet he’ll stab a lot of baddies.”

“Yeah of course he will, he’s so cool, he’ll kick their butts.”

He grabbed his magic-lamp, switching it on with his mind and lighting his twin.

She was miming jumping around and stabbing at the air, her long black hair flowing after her.

The sudden light made her squint her purple eyes, as it lit her face, a perfect lookalike to Ulysse’s.

“Eeew turn it off.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Nope.”

He turned the lamp straight to her face to hold her at bay.

“Al’, I want to go test something, lets sneak outside.”

“Turn that damn thing off my face, and yes, let's go... Wait we can’t play swords, your arm is hurt.”

“Ho right... but it’s phantom-pains, not sword-pains its ok.”

Lies always bit you back didn’t they.

“Ok then.”

Thankfully Alice didn’t need much convincing.

They started raiding the nightstand for their hidden gear.

He took out their outdoors clothes, stolen at the Olian residence, then two dark capes, whose origin was better left unsaid, and readied his lamp.

Meanwhile Alice was tugging on a rope ladder that always got stuck inside the drawer.

Then they took their swords, a gift from their shady uncle. Made of rare wood and intricately engraved along their length. An enchantment that stopped the swords from causing harm. That way they didn’t leave bruises like Olian’s wooden swords did.

Finally, they got ready gearing up.

“Is it also getting tight for you?”

“Nah you are just getting fat.”

“Liar, I see you trying to bend your legs.”

“Yeah ok, they are getting tighter, well need to steal new ones soon.”

“Or we could buy them.”

“Noo, sneak clothes must be stolen.”

“I guess.”

“You ready?”

“I was ready before you were born.”

“You literally can’t, I was born minutes before you.”

“Ha! You were only ready after getting out, weakling.”

“You know I can push you once outside, right?”

“And break my arm twice in a day, mom will kill you.”

“Hey I said I was sorry about that.”

Chuckling, Ulysse unlocked the window, then pushed it upward, it slid it open.

“Ladies first.”

His sister jumped on the windowsill with practiced ease and none of the fear children should have felt standing a dozen meters from the ground.

As soon as she had stepped of the sill, onto the shingles, Ulysse followed after her.

Tonight was a bit windy he noted, but the roof was dry and that was the most important part.

They crouched down, lowering their mass and started traversing the roof, towards the side of the mansion.

Ulysse really liked to be on the roof, first it wasn’t something he was allowed to do, second, he could somewhat see the well-lit neighboring mansions over the domain’s wall and further beyond the shapes of the darkening city, the snowy mountains behind it yet another background lit by the moon reflected in the great lake of Modon.

“What are you doing slowpoke.”

Ulysse’s thoughts came back to the roof. His sister had fastened the rope ladder on the edge, letting it drop down. Now she was waiting for him to go down.

“Sorry, I'm coming.”

He grabbed the flimsy ladder then climbed down quickly, skipping rods two by two.

He jumped the last half-meter, thumping quietly next to Alice.

“You think we’ll meet monsters in the wood some day?”

“Yeah, I've thought about it, it can’t be flying monsters cause the guards would see and shoot them, land ones can’t because of the wall, that leaves dwarves.”

“Why dwarves, what are they?”

“Small stumpy ugly humanoids, like goblins, but with an ugly beard and really good at digging, but I think we are safe, the dark-elves always enslave them in stories.”

“I bet I could beat a dwarf, they sound lame.”

The mischievous kids fell into silence between bouts of chatter for a few minutes as they made their way between manicured trees to a small clearing of well-tended grass barely twenty meters from the wall. At its center stood an old fountain of simple design.

It wasn’t any clearing, it was theirs and had been so for years since they found it while wandering in the back woods. It was the place they had always gone to play. The place they could talk about their dream of adventure as monster slayers. The place they snuck to in the dead of the night to do things the family wouldn’t approve of.

His sister plodded down in the grass, a curious gaze directed to him.

He followed suit.

“So, Ul' wanna see if you can beat me with that brand new arm?”

That taunt was weak, and they both knew it. However that might have been Ulysse’s last chance to beat ugly-face without channeling.

One last slight against her, against a channeling genius.

Or maybe it would fail and he would be left unable to do anything tonight.

“You better watch that arm Al'. Same as usual?”

“First to five, hands don't count, disarm does, Ice doesn't, glancing one, full double?” she counted out of memory.

“Yup.”

“Pause after each hits?”

“No, lets make it quick, I told you I wanted to try something afterwards.”

“Ok, lets go.”

They both stood up and grabbed their enchanted wooden swords.

Ulysse started to warm up doing small jumps and waving his arms while his sister had closes her eyes in concentration.

She was warming up her faith channeling.

Well, faith was a bit of a misnomer, he'd always been able to gather the Eternals' power, even without a shred of faith.

Her skin started to emit a small glow from the sheer quantity of energy she was channeling, it started switching between the colors of the four pairs of gods;

Cold blue of winter.

Spring's pure white.

Fiery red of summer.

And autumn's foreboding black.

He’d always thought it was a good, if intimidating thing, that glow. It meant she wasted a lot of energy and it told him of her plans.

Once they both finished warming up they walked a few meters away from each others.

Their training swords were on the smaller end, about 60cm of blade, weighting less than a kilo, but to them they felt like appropriately sized arming swords at half their bodies' height.

Ulysse was first to lift his sword in a guard, to his right at eye level in a two handed grip, the point towards his opponent shoulders while his legs were bent and feet spread apart at an angle. Books called it an Ox guard.

Alice lifted her sword as she always did. Unlike him she gripped her sword one-handed high above her head, it gave her left hand the freedom to grapple, should she have the occasion.

He hoped his newly devised strategy would work against his sister's brutal opening move.

He started counting down and she followed.

“3, 2, 1, go!”

They stared at each others for a few seconds, walking around the clearing while Ulysse was trying to put some distance between them.

It was Alice that broke the stalemate, she started to glow with the red of summer, channeling Body, and with incredible speed she dashed to his left, away from his sword's tip.

He barely had time to take a step back and put his sword to the left, when hers came crashing down from over her head, with the strength of a grown-up.

Instead of trying to dodge like he often did, he pushed his handle sky-wards, bracing straight arms to his body.

His sister's sword hit his before it could fully accelerate. The impact almost enough to make him loose his grip, yet for the first time in a long while he managed to parry her first strike. Her sword slid alongside his and into the ground. Channeling Body didn’t mean she had the necessary leverage to stop her charge.

He stepped around and forward. After the parry his sword was in position to retaliate, so he did, prioritizing speed over strength his sword whipped towards her.

While veteran channelers were able to use the power of several deities at the same time, like Mind and Body, his sister was only 10, and Body by itself did not improve her reflexes.

A hit that would surprise a normal person could surprise her, and it did. His sword lit red, a full hit, as it impacted her clavicle. With a sharp blade that hit could have been deadly, but it was wood and the enchantments had absorbed most of the impact.

“Two.” He yelled triumphantly.

Alice growled, frustrated to be hit in the first exchange then pushed him away with her free hand, knocking him out of breath with the force of the move.

He stumbled backward panting and unstable while she wrenched her sword from the loose dirt and rushed at him once again with the full might of Body.

By the time he saw her coming he knew he wouldn’t have time to dodge or parry.

He needed to trade blow, his hand gripped his sword tighter and he heaved, thrusting towards his sister’s center of mass.

This time she saw to move coming and sidestepped it, sending tufts of grass flying with her footsteps.

Meanwhile she brought her own sword to bear, slamming it on her stumbling brother’s ribs.

Her sword came out lit in red, his, surprisingly was orange, he'd adjusted his thrust to her dodge and managed barely clip her left arm.

“Two to three.”

Both already panting, they backed of and started walking around, neither of them wanting to trade any more points.

“We should really forbid grappling.”

“Nope.” She grinned.

Suddenly his sister froze, her body stopped glowing. Ulysse ran, his sword horizontal to try and stab her before she could change her channeled deity.

Not two seconds after, her eyes snapped open just as Ulysse was about to hit, the sudden blue glow of winter was the only telltale sign of a burst of ice suddenly covering her chest and deflecting her brother’s sword.

He tried to back off, now on equal terms of speed, he was however unbalanced.

She managed to land a glancing blow before he could dodge it.

“Three, three.”

It was starting to look bad for him, while Body might have been his sister’s favorite, he had learned how to counter it, somewhat, but Ice was trickier, he'd have to hit her twice in quick succession without being hit himself or strike hard enough to break through.

Ulysse dove deep in thoughts of strategies against Ice, so deep that he didn’t notice the telltale flicker of his sister’s glow while she stood her ground.

She came at him with a low guard and would be unable to parry attacks from above, but looked confident in her defense anyways. Ulysse intended to break them by copying her signature move, simple, yet effective.

He stepped forward sword held high and slammed it down like a brute, hoping she wouldn't try to go for a trade.

She didn't, in fact, she didn’t do anything he had expected her to either. Instead she moved smoothly, yet with purpose, as if the world around her was slowed to a crawl, barely dodging his sword as she closed in, her own sword reared for a thrust.

His brain came up short with solutions, she was going to win, this wasn’t Ice anymore, it was Mind.

“Full hit! five to three.”

They both fell on the grass panting.

She was so, so smug.